Kenya’s Plan to Become Africas ICT Hub by 2017

Kenya has always been a bright star on Africa’s horizon, and more recently they have been improving their reputation with an innovative and aggressive plan to become Africa’s ICT Hub by 2017. The plan seeks to spur the development of 500 tier-one technology companies, the creation of 20 global innovations and 50,000 new jobs. Kenya also hopes to generate $2 billion dollars annually, up from $860 million IT spending recorded in 2011. How We Made in; Insight into Business in Africa interviewed Paul Kukubo, the CEO of the Kenya ICT Board, the governement agenicy in charge of positioning Kenya as an ICT destination, to find out how feasible the nation’s amibitions are.

The interview makes some bold statements about the nations plan, inluding:

1. “The plan has at its core vision that by 2017, Kenyabecomes Africa’s most globally respected knowledge economy.”

2. “We need to continue strengthening education in ICT so that people can come here to find talent.”

3. “Konza is already unlocking so many opportunities in the private sector. It is creating linkages with the financial sector, construction sector, health sector, education sector and with development partners. Institutions that serve the middle class and the poor should actually be built to the best and highest standards, not the other way round.”

The Konza Technology City project is a planned high-tech hub inspired by Silicon Valley. Other key areas of focus include marketing and brand awareness, and intruducing more start-ups. The Infographic below highlights the action plan, and does an excellent job of showing the logisitics and feasiblity of Kenya’s effots.

I’ve always been a supporter in having an ambitious plan, however Kenya appears to be a bit over ambitious which can take away from potentials and strategies that can achieve realistic gains. They emphasis the financial sector, however, it would be awesome to see their some of the steps they plan on taking to their goals such as “creating linkages in the financial sector.” For example, listing strategies they agree to implement such as tax benefits among other things to promote investment in the ICT industry. Unfortunately, this appears to be the case when it comes to ICT in many developing and underdeveloped countries, so I suppose an ambitious plan is a good start.